I am not an economist, nor am I the son of an economist. I am an outsider to the financial world who hears terms like "bail-out", "Ponzi scheme" and 'Keynesian economics" and runs to the internet like fifth-graders looking at the dioramas at a Natural History museum. I also confess a general disdain for operations that are inherently mathematical in nature. Algebraic functions work fine, but you go into calculus or geometrical charts and I'm screwed.
Inasmuch as I don't understand these things, I find my greatest intolerance is ignorance--first in others and secondarily (as I am made aware of it) within myself. So I am trying to make sense of some of this, and I'm fumbling through it. More specifically, I'm trying to figure out how faith plays into the whole thing--to say Jesus was a socialist or capitalist is to, in a very real sense, miss the point and risk a
false dilemma. Jesus was, and is, infinitely more than either of these things, but it is much more difficult to make direct application to our current crisis.
Last Friday NPR ran a
piece jointly produced with This American Life that introduced me to the ribald figure of
John Maynard Keynes--a British economist from the earlier 20th century. It turns out that Keynes disliked Americans intensely and speculated that the illegitimate child of the British Empire wasn't smart enough to implement his economic system. Much could be said about Keynesianism and what I learned from that radio segment, but for all intents and purposes, the principle is relatively simple:
- The simplest way to stimulate the economy is through investing government funds into the economy directly. This way jobs are created, infrastructure is strengthened/created and the financial system is stabilized.
In the 1980's most economists rejected Keynes and saw interest rates as a stabilizing force in the economy. The competing ideal was that consumer spending was the sign of economic confidence. As confidence went down, the interest rate could be rolled back by the Federal Reserve and people would/could borrow more with less interest--which works, at least until the rate is absolute 0--which it hit in mid-December of last year.
Keynes is suddenly once again en vogue as evidenced in the President's speech at the Democratic National Convention last August:
...give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society, but what it really means is - you're on your own. Out of work? Tough luck. No health care? The market will fix it. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps - even if you don't have boots. You're on your own.
Many have (and will) dismiss the now-President-then-candidate Obama's words as pablum or political soapboxing to rally the Democratic base--but what if we dispelled our cynicism for a minute?
This morning one of the featured headlines on CNN.com read
"What GOP Leaders Deem Wasteful in Senate Stimulus Bill:". I clicked the link with what I thought were pretty good expectations of what I would find--cuts to education, technology, infrastructure repair, new energy and health-care initiatives. I was shocked at the extent of the proposed "revisions." Lest I be accused of piece-mealing it, here's the list in it's entirety:
• $2 billion earmark to re-start FutureGen, a near-zero emissions coal power plant in Illinois that the Department of Energy defunded last year because it said the project was inefficient.
• A $246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion picture film.
• $650 million for the digital television converter box coupon program.
• $88 million for the Coast Guard to design a new polar icebreaker (arctic ship).
• $448 million for constructing the Department of Homeland Security headquarters.
• $248 million for furniture at the new Homeland Security headquarters.
• $600 million to buy hybrid vehicles for federal employees.
• $400 million for the Centers for Disease Control to screen and prevent STD's.
• $1.4 billion for rural waste disposal programs.
• $125 million for the Washington sewer system.
• $150 million for Smithsonian museum facilities.
• $1 billion for the 2010 Census, which has a projected cost overrun of $3 billion.
• $75 million for "smoking cessation activities."
• $200 million for public computer centers at community colleges.
• $75 million for salaries of employees at the FBI.
• $25 million for tribal alcohol and substance abuse reduction.
• $500 million for flood reduction projects on the Mississippi River.
• $10 million to inspect canals in urban areas.
• $6 billion to turn federal buildings into "green" buildings.
• $500 million for state and local fire stations.
• $650 million for wildland fire management on forest service lands.
• $1.2 billion for "youth activities," including youth summer job programs.
• $88 million for renovating the headquarters of the Public Health Service.
• $412 million for CDC buildings and property.
• $500 million for building and repairing National Institutes of Health facilities in Bethesda, Maryland.
• $160 million for "paid volunteers" at the Corporation for National and Community Service.
• $5.5 million for "energy efficiency initiatives" at the Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration.
• $850 million for Amtrak.
• $100 million for reducing the hazard of lead-based paint.
• $75 million to construct a "security training" facility for State Department Security officers when they can be trained at existing facilities of other agencies.
• $110 million to the Farm Service Agency to upgrade computer systems.
• $200 million in funding for the lease of alternative energy vehicles for use on military installations.
It's tempting to go line by line and discuss how legitimate or heinous each of these cuts are (even more so to think that many of these are actually viewed by someone as "pork"). I'll try to fight that temptation for now, but the alternative suggestion from the GOP are increased tax breaks for the American consumer. I think there are myriad flaws with this plan, but again, I'm no economist.
I am, however, a person of faith--more specifically, a minister--someone who is supposed to model faith, question faith, and be able to talk to others about issues related to faith. I've been at a bit of a loss in our current economic crisis--I don't know what to tell the worker who was just laid-off and what little I do know seems cheap and trite--like well-intentioned cliches at a funeral.
What I can say is that I know what we've been called to, and, by negation, what we've been called away from. Walter Brueggemann, a noted scholar of the Old Testament (or "Hebrew Bible" as it is more aptly known),
has written brilliantly to this end. I stumbled upon the article from
another blog that quoted him and as much as the writer inside me says "Don't quote the same section!", I cannot help myself.
Brueggemann says:
It is futile, from a biblical perspective, to engage in disputes about modern theoretical labels such as "socialism" or "capitalism." The Bible does not linger over such labels, but insists that every available instrument of well-being—government, charity, private sector—must be mobilized in order to mediate the resources of the community for the sake of the common good.
We have been called to mobilize forces for the building of the Kingdom.
A Kingdom does not consist of vigilante cowboys, furiously clamoring for bootstraps only to realize they were repossessed by Wall Street.
A Kingdom does not consist of "Me generation" yuppies (or later iterations) vituperatively arguing for individualism and autonomy.
A Kingdom cannot stand while it's citizens hoard material goods and reject the King's claim to limitless bounty.
A Kingdom cannot stand when it has exchanged promise for credit.
I recognize these are generalizations and I am not without sin here. What I feel in the crisis of this day--what I want to believe we all feel--is a sense of loss with every layoff. That we are grieving with those known and unknown who are struggling to see hope and purpose in the midst of pain. And it is in the middle of that community that we catch a glimpse of the eternity born in our hearts--that we are more than a nation or even a civilization--that we are citizens of yet another Kingdom that calls us to live out those principles within our current land.
Before God and in the example of Christ, we are to live out a faith that considers neighbor over kin, need above greed and everyone over self.
When we do so we cease to glamorize rugged individualism as we move in step with the Spirit as the Beloved Community.
When we care for one another more than we care for ourselves we find riches that cannot be measured in currency or in goods--where tides of love meet welcome shores of gratitude.
We appeal to our government to do the job that the Church has not--to care for one another as community--and though it's methods are imperfect, we welcome any who would help us strive toward caring for one another--to putting their needs above ours--to all those who would see in friend and stranger the very image of God.
